World Battlefronts, RUSSIA: Hedgehog's End

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In the swamps and forests hugging Staraya Russa bodies rotted and weapons turned rusty. The town itself lay crushed beneath its stench of death. Here, for two and one half years, the Germans held on: to give up this powerful "hedgehog" was to unhinge the whole northern front.

Last week the Germans blew up their defenses, abandoned Staraya Russa. The reason, boldly scribbled across the map of war: fear of being caught by the fast, steady Russian advance from the north. To the jubilant Russians this was a victory as great as the destruction of the Eighth German Army in the Ukraine (see below), as the break-through at Krivoi Rog. This week they looked forward to a still greater triumph: capture of Pskov, railroad gateway into the Baltic States. Of the three Red armies driving on the thousand-year-old stronghold, the closest stood only 28 miles away.